Chasing The Nostalgia Dragon.

Far be it for me to make any glaring assumptions about my readership… but I have to at least superficially reckon on most of you filling a few similar demographic tick-boxes to me.

So if you’re a Millennial, a recovering Warhammer addict, a professional with eyes far bigger than their belly when it comes to hobby projects or even just a lover of skirmish games and slick gameplay… it’s probably safe for me to assume you’re going to find yourself in a similar situation to that in which I’ve found myself over recent years. Relentlessly, greedily and often foolishly chasing the nostalgia dragon, looking for that Wargame that makes you feel like Wargames did when you were a teenager.

The 2nd Edition 40K Starter Box

You probably owned the box pictured above… or a later, but similar one from 3rd or 4th edition 40K. You probably cherished its contents and spent many hours after school playing Floorhammer. You may have been lucky as I was, to get hand-me-down minis from your two elder brothers. Those halcyon days may be long behind you now, but unless you’re entirely dead inside, you probably miss them a lot.

As I stare down the barrel of my 40’s, the period of time where I most fondly recall wargaming, and the feelings it gave me, is secondary school. For me, that’s the mid-90’s to early 00’s. The exact place in time isn’t important, but that feeling is.

Do you remember when miniatures had gravity? When holding a Space Marine or an Eldar Guardian felt special? Like the piece of plastic in your hand was important. It meant something. You were lucky to have it. Even luckier if you had metal ones. Even luckier still if they were well painted.

Now that us Millennial wargamers are all grown up… we can afford miniatures. They are most likely, the main thing we spend our disposable income on. A lot of us (me included, albeit much less so these days, thanks to some Herculean self-discipline) have huge piles of them, unpainted, wallowing away in cupboards, reminding us that as much as our neurodivergences explain our overspending, they don’t necessarily justify it.

But what is the actual reason? Why do we keep buying this stuff, knowing full well we won’t paint even half of it by the time we slip quietly from this mortal coil?

An Anonymous Pile of Shame…

It is my belief… and hopefully by the end of this article, it’s yours too - that we’re chasing the nostalgia dragon.

We’re trying to capture that feeling again, of being insiders in to something niche and special. Of having that cool hobby that takes skill and dedication, except this time with a grown up budget, so that we can actually own one of those vast, painted armies we’ve only ever seen in display cabinets.

Thing is… 40K, the game most of us grew up with… just isn’t that any more. Neither is (my favourite game as a teen) Necromunda. The Old World isn’t the answer you’re looking for either… and nope, it’s not Age of Sigmar.

You see, this is a repeat talking point across the hobby these days and yet for some reason it never seems to sink in and translate to action. Games Workshop, simply put, does not make games for people of our age-group. They didn’t back when we were kids either, that’s why as kids, we loved them. They were made for us.

GW wants two types of customer. Customer A is around 12-16 years old and has rich parents. Customer B is around university age and plays competitively. Those are the people that the games are aimed at, and those are the types of people who have the easiest time engaging with them. The further you move from one of those two customer types… the more you will inevitably find you struggle to keep up.

AND THATS FINE! It’s okay if Warhammer isn’t for you any more! jeez believe me… I had a HARD time coming to this realisation. I went through all the 7 stages of grief. I literally lost friends. Breaking up with Warhammer is harder than breaking up from any relationship with a human I’ve ever had. But much like when your favourite human dumps you… it won’t hurt forever. You will bounce back. You will find new ways to do your thing and be your you and you will be happy again.

The biggest mistake I ever made, honestly, was trying to force it. Was holding on to the idea of having a gorgeous 40K army waaaay into my 30’s, when I barely had time to paint anything for myself.

And it’s so, after going through this and tasting the clean air on the other side… that I found myself recently doing something I genuinely never thought I’d even consider, let alone actually enjoy.

I painted a Nazi.

A German WW2 Wermacht Officer Leading a Squad of Fallshirmjager.

Well, I’m skipping forward a bit there…and actually the lead up to painting Nazis is quite important.

Because first of all, I painted an entire playable force of US Army. This consisted of a couple of squads of Army Rangers, a small squad of Airborne accompanying an officer, a few random smaller blobs of men, two tanks and a half track. Great right? Nothing special?

WRONG. Very special. VERY IMPORTANT.

The last time I owned a complete ARMY for an actual, army-sized wargame, where every model was painted was… and I shit you not here… around 2010. Yeah.

Because it turns out that no matter how hard you chase that dragon; whether you buy a unit at a time, or the whole army at once… it’s HARD to finish Warhammer armies these days. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard for a bunch of GREAT reasons, chiefly that the modern miniatures have so much greebling on them that the “finishing touches” stage is longer than all the previous stages combined. Nonethless it is hard… and I failed many times.

Eldar, Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines (of three different flavours), Orks, Nids… didn’t seem to matter which army I picked, in the time I had available I just couldn’t paint enough miniatures without burning out and quitting on the army altogether.

Again… not a GW problem, a me problem. Their product isn’t made for me. Its made for someone who either doesn’t mind super quick, “battle ready” paint jobs on their very expensive and detailed miniatures (probably the kid with rich parents?)… or who has ALL THE HOURS EVER to spend on their army (probably the uni-aged person who should be revising but doesn’t bother and somehow still gets a pass on every assignment, I’m not jealous, you are. I have a blog, I’m cool. I don’t need a degree).

I am of that persuasion of people who “paints for the sculpt” shall we say… If it’s a simple sculpt, I don’t mind giving it a simple paint job. If it’s a character, or a big model, or just a highly detailed sculpt, I feel the sculpt deserves time, care, and effort. This means that trying to paint even say a squad of 10 Khorne Berserkers in 2025 (something I attempted and abandoned after the test scheme) is hovering in the region of an 80 hour endeavour for me.

I don’t know about you, but 80 hours of my “spare” (by which I mean not time I’m at work or asleep) time accounts for about an entire month of my life, and if that’s the temporal buy-in for a single squad, then frankly a 2000 point World Eaters army can get fucked in it’s spiky, blood-soaked bumhole.

Sherman “Fury” From The Tank Museum, Bovington

So that brings me to Fury…

The first time I watched Brad and the boys, bobbing about making an absolute fucking mockery of US combat doctrine, it was just another fun WW2 movie in a long list of fun WW2 movies that I’ve watched and enjoyed.

However it was after visiting The Tank Museum (really unhelpful name, when every time you mention it, the other person’s first response is “which one?”)… and seeing the actual Sherman Easy Eight used for the film… that I realised just how much I bloody love Shermans.

I’ve always loved tanks, in that way that a kid points at them and through clouds of spat out biscuit crumbs says “ooh. Cool.” But I think Fury awoke a feeling in me of just how bloody awesome the Sherman chassis was, and as a result, sparked an ADHD rabbit hole that is still going strong after several years. I became utterly obsessed with the Sherman, wanting to know everything about it and why it performed so well in the war, despite on paper being quite the cup of warm milk.

Fast forward a wee while and my YouTube algorithm is absolutely as obsessed as I am with the Sherman, and knowing I also like wargaming, it starts to recommend Bolt Action and Achtung Panzer! videos to me (AP! is another game from Warlord that focuses specifically on tank battles). As I’m sure you can imagine… it doesn’t take me long to realise that this Bolt Action malarkey might just be for me.

I bought in… I was way too ambitious with my painting. I burned out. I shelved the whole army. Same old story.

A Section of My US Bolt Action Force

Except it wasn’t… because the love that inspired the project didn’t go away. I still had dreams of rolling tanks around and making pew pew noises with my little green men.

Eventually I found the time to dive in to the brain-tank, come up with a faster, lower pressure way to paint the army, and get it done…

And you know what? It was AMAZING. I was smashing through squads in silly quick time… I was having fun and most importantly, an army was coming together. Just take a look at the two rangers at the front left of the image. The right hand of those two was painted the old tryhard way… took me maybe 2.5 or 3 hours. Still pretty quick, but not army quick. The dude immediately to his left? 30 minutes.

Yes, he’s not as well painted, yes the colours are less accurate but come on… he doesn’t look THAT much worse, and it really just came from remembering to paint for the sculpt. It’s a simple mini, give it a simple treatment.

The officer in the middle shows that you can still get a bit showy, even with simple sculpts, if there’s a character you want to try harder on, but in all honesty I’m really happy with this army, despite the vast majority of it being speed painted…and when the sculpts are that chill, you actually CAN speed paint them.

Now this isn’t the only “Millennial problem” that Bolt Action solves for me, because as a gameplay experience in general, it really feels like its made for me and people who are in the same boat as me.

The activation system kinda still feels old skool, but lacks the boredom inducing waits associated with a full-scale army game being played as I-go-you-go. You draw dice from a bag, and whoever’s army the die colour corresponds to gets to pick a unit to activate. This means sometimes your opponent might get two or three activations before you get one… but that feels like a “confusion of battle” thing, rather than in say 40K where your highly trained super soldiers are happy to stand around getting shot to shit for half an hour, before any of them decides to do something about it.

The game length is also shorter I’d say… I’m yet to properly sit down and play - I only got my Americans done a couple weeks ago at time of writing this… but all the batreps and chatter I’ve seen suggests that it’s quicker than 40K, but probably not skirmish game quick.

But I think we all know deep down that time is the one resource we just struggle to give to this hobby as we get older… so with simpler models, a more proactive playstyle and a shorter game length - a lot of what makes it hard to Warhammer for me, disappears with Bolt Action.

My Full 1000pt US Force for Bolt Action

Sure, the models aren’t flashy… I’m unlikely to use them for competitions… but I CAN complete a full force of them in my spare time… and that’s just not something I can say for any GW game any more.

But I did promise to tell you about Nazis…

So…look this is a topic I HATE talking about, because I feel like as soon as you engage with it with anything less than absolute bile and vitriol towards the Nazis, you’re immediately expected to qualify your position as not a racist, or face immediate cancellation.

We’re all grown-ups here. I’m not going to do the song and dance, just suffice it to say I’m not painting Nazis because I like or support Nazis and lets just leave it at that.

So, what do I like about the Nazis (in Bolt Action)?

Well… I like tanks. Their tanks are pretty fun in a Whacky Races, “Why the fuck did they think this was a good idea” kinda way? The Warlord kits for them are stellar and the painting opportunities are REALLY enticing.

Their uniforms were very slick too… there’s a reason why the Empire in Star Wars and the Empire in Warhammer both use a lot of Nazi styling in the imagery of their bad guys.

But mostly what I like about them is that they’re an axis force that make sense as opponenets for BOTH of the forces that I want to collect on the allied side (that being USA and USSR). That means I can build a 1000pt and a 1250pt (the two popular game sizes) list of Germans and have battles that make a degree of sense with another player. I can easily use my models to teach new players, too.

Is it kinda weird to have such a practical and detached reason for collecting and painting Nazis? Maybe… but I think maybe I just care too much about that kinda thing exactly BECAUSE I have such a strong hatred for racism, fascism, and the crimes of the Third Reich.

But what’s really wild to me is just how much I’m enjoying painting them… unlike the Americans where EVERYTHING MUST BE GREEN! The Germans were kinda mad with their uniforms. Both green and grey tones of Feldgrau, tanks in all sorts of colours (grey, green, tan, camo patterns), the Fallshirmjager I picked up are in white and blue snow suits… as a painting project, it’s actually just so much more interesting than you might expect a WW2 project to be.

The Rulebook for Pillage, published in the UK by Victrix

And that brings me neatly on to my other recent obsession - Pillage. Because apparently I am becoming everyone’s dad, and historical wargaming is now everything I want in life.

The thing is… once you adapt your circle and start looking at new things… there tends to be a cascade effect where you start to see similar new things. Social media algorithms are largely responsible for this and normally that might upset me a little, but actually I couldn’t have been happier that they decided to show me pillage.

It’s a very simple little game - the rulebook isn’t very thick, the rules themselves are VERY symmetrical and stripped back. Models don’t even have statlines. Weapons dictate how easy it is to hit, armour how easy it is to survive and gold is spent to buy those things and attach them to your mens.

BUT… again TV influencing me here, I REALLY enjoyed the show Vikings…so the chance build a little Viking raiding party felt awesome to me. Enough so that I wanted to snatch up a copy of the rulebook and a bag of Victrix Vikings. So I did.

Firstly, lovely rulebook. It does have one glaring typo in it, but otherwise its gorgeously presented and really nicely laid out. After one read I felt like I could pretty much play the game no problem.

Also! At the back it has a section on scratch building terrain using household junk. This was a GORGEOUS little tickle of my nostalgia noodle, taking me right back to the old GW deodorant hover car (IYKYK) and the cereal packet Ork Battlewagon of the 90’s. My God this kinda thing is EXACTLY what I’ve missed in Wargaming.

Sven Bobsson, My New Viking Chieftain

But the big takeaway for me was remembering just how GOOD Victrix miniatures are and finally having an excuse to build and paint some.

I first encountered Victrix at Partizan a few years ago and as a recovering Warhammer addict, I’d never heard of them at the time. Nowadays they’re one of those miniature makers I hold in somewhat legendary regard and finally having a reason to own some of their stuff is wonderful.

I’m really excited by both Bolt Action AND Pillage, right now. They make me feel like a kid again. The miniatures feel special and important. The painting actually fits in to my lifestyle. The games actually look like things I not only will enjoy playing, but will be able to find time to play.

If you’d have asked me even a year ago, I think I’d have told you that I doubt I’ll ever have an interest in historical wargaming… but me today, right now? Well put it this way… my Victrix stuff came in the mail today and at the same time a small order from Warlord for some extra Bolt Action bits. Warlord threw in a sprue of Napoleonic era British and I CANNOT stop eyeing them up! I don’t have a force or a game for them…but by gum I want to paint them!

I don’t know what’s happening to me… I’m like… the cyberpunk guy? I love Sci-Fi! I don’t even like Fantasy wargaming… which surely is closer to historicals than Sci-Fi is?! But here we are, in the year of our lord two-thousand and twenty-five and my current personal projects are bloody WW2 Germans and Middle Age Vikings. What even is life?

Tell you what it definitely isn’t though… boring! I have such a rejuvenated sense of purpose and fulfilment in my hobby right now and that is absolutely priceless. So look. I’m not telling you to quit Warhammer. I’m way past my days of even caring about what other Wargamers do with their time… I offer GW as a point of reference purely because it’s something we can both relate to. A sensible baseline of universal understanding from which we can explore the topic.

However if you’ve made it this far through what I’m pretty sure is my longest article ever… and you’ve found yourself nodding along, or feeling seen, when I explain my interactions with wargaming as a 40 year old professional… well… maybe you’re chasing the dragon down some empty alleys? Maybe it’s time for a wee peek in a different direction, behind a new door… you might just be about to discover exactly what your hobby needs.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for a little break from doing the same stuff you’ve been trying to make work for years, and having a little goosey at what else is out there. I’m not saying it’ll fix all your problems… but it won’t add to them either, and it might be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.

For me, that breakthrough has come in the most unexpected place. Bolt Action, Pillage…and a lonely little sprue of Waterloo Brits. Who knows where it’ll come from for you… but if you need it, it ain’t gonna find itself.

Also if you’re in to WW2, the new Bad Squiddo Kickstarter ends TONIGHT and is AMAZING, please go back it, Annie is a legend. The KS is all about people who resisted the Nazis and includes one of my faves, Agent Zo.

Thanks for reading, gang.